Alexander Volck

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Alexander Volck was the city scribe for the Wetteravian town of Büdingen in Hesse, Germany during the mid 18th century. He was, for a time, a member of the Moravian Church, but eventually left the church and became one of its most vociferous critics;[1][2] authoring The Revealed Secret of the Malice of the Herrnhuter Sect, seven volumes printed between 1748–1751, which attacked Nicolaus Zinzendorf and the Moravian Church.[3]

His work elicited responses from members of the Moravian Church[4][5] and influenced other anti-Moravian authors.[6] The Revealed Secret was circulated among Lutheran pastors working against the Moravians in Pennsylvania,[7] Volck's work also spread rumors the Moravian Church was allowing women to perform in rituals reserved for ordained men,[8] among others.[9]

Works authored[edit]

  • Das entdeckte Geheimnis der Bosheit der Herrnhutischen Secte, 7 volumes, (Frankfurt and Leipzig: Heinrich Ludwig Brönner, 1748-1751).
  • Unumstößliche Vertheidigung der Glaubwürdigkeit des entdeckten Geheimniß der Boßheit der Herrnhutischen Secte (1750).

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Miller, Derrick R. (November 2014). "Alexander Volck's Anti-Moravian Polemics as Enlightenment Anxieties". Journal of Moravian History. 14 (2): 103–118. doi:10.5325/jmorahist.14.2.0103. S2CID 170172064.
  2. ^ Peucker, Paul (2015). A Time of Sifting: Mystical Marriage and the Crisis of Moravian Piety in the Eighteenth Century. Penn State University Press. ISBN 9780271066431.
  3. ^ Dietrich Meyer, ed., Bibliographisches Handbuch zur Zinzendorf-Forschung (Düsseldorf: privately printed, 1987).
  4. ^ Johann Petsch, Unparteyische Untersuchung der Glaubwürdigkeit der unter dem Titul des entdeckten Geheimnisses der Bosheit der Herrnhutischen Secte heraus gekommenen Entrevuen (1750)
  5. ^ David Kranz, Kurze, zuverläßige Nachricht von der, unter dem Namen der Böhmisch-Mährischen Brüder bekanten, Kirche Unitas Fratrum (1757). Alternate Title: Das Zeremonienbüchlein. Reprinted with a scholarly introduction by Rudolf Dellsperger (Herrnhut: Herrnhuter Verlag, 2014).
  6. ^ Heinrich Joachim Bothe, Zuverläßige Beschreibung des nunmehro ganze entdeckten Herrenhutischen Ehe-Geheimnisses (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1751).
  7. ^ Fogleman, Aaron Spencer (2014). Jesus Is Female: Moravians and Radical Religion in Early America (2nd ed.). Penn State University Press. ISBN 9780812291681.
  8. ^ Prior Smaby, Beverly (2009). "Restricting Women's Leadership in Moravian Bethlehem". In Strom, Jonathan; Lehmann, Hartmut; Van Horn Melton, James (eds.). Pietism in Germany and North America 1680-1820. Ashgate Publishing. p. 154. ISBN 978-0754664017.
  9. ^ Peucker, Paul (2007). "The Songs of the Sifting. Understanding the Role of Bridal Mysticism in Moravian Piety during the late 1740s". Journal of Moravian History. 3 (3): 58, 60. doi:10.2307/41179833. JSTOR 41179833. S2CID 248823578.

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